


it's not your fault

by olivestark



Series: Imo's summer ficathon [2]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Disasters, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:16:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivestark/pseuds/olivestark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When disaster strikes, Kirk and Spock need each other more than ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it's not your fault

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be up a lot earlier but I'm very lazy. If I get any of the facts wrong please tell me because I am awful at science.

“Spock…?”

His vision focused suddenly, his head banging. He saw two big blue eyes and an excited smile centimeters away from his face. He sat up but was immediately pushed back onto a makeshift bed by Dr McCoy.

“Mr. Spock you need to lie down while we check your blood pressure. Captain back to where you… god dammit Jim has that wound opened again? Can someone take over Commander Spock here? Jim I told you to stay where you are…” He led off Jim who had a trail of blood running down the side of his face.

Their voices trailed off. Spock frowned. He wasn’t on the Enterprise. He didn’t know where he was.

He was in a hall. A gleaming, white hall. In every space of the room there was a mattress, all battered to a different level. All filled with Starfleet officers. Doctors were rushing around doing health checks and patching people up and feeding officers who couldn’t raise their head. He was confused. The last thing he remembered was… he was on the bridge of the Enterprise… Chekov had mentioned a ship coming into range, the shields, they malfunctioned and-

“Agh.” He squirmed as a sharp pain went down his neck. Sulu was crouched beside him with a box of medicine of different colours.

“Mr. Spock can you hold out your arm please.” He did so as Sulu took his blood pressure.

“Mr. Sulu I don’t believe you are a fully qualified doctor.”

“Yeah, I’m not.” He smiled. “But they’re a bit desperate. We lost a lot of qualified officers; they went for the medical bay first. The few we do have were in other places at the time.” He saw the look on Spock’s face. “You don’t know what happened, Commander?”

“I’m afraid not Mr. Sulu. I have just woken up from what I assume was unconsciousness. Would you mind informing me of where we are?”

“A temporary Starfleet base that was on the nearest planet…” He breathed in. “The Enterprise was attacked by an enemy ship, still unidentified as far as I know. Roll up your sleeve.” Spock did so and Sulu felt for his pulse on his forearm, sticking a needle in as the gouge filled up with Vulcan green blood. “They hacked into our systems and shut down our shields and lasers. Half the crew was knocked unconscious until it was just Bones, Uhura and I on the bridge flying the damn thing. We were lucky to land so close to the base.”

“And… the Captain?”

“Over there. His arm was broken but he won’t stop rushing around checking his crew. Right, you seem like you’ve got off lightly, just a few bumps and bruises, have a walk around; you’ve been here a few days.”

Spock’s eyes widened in surprise. Days… had they been able to contact Starfleet executives? He frowned and inspected the large hall; it stretched for an extremely large distance. Shirts of all colours were holding clipboards and medicines and sick buckets. He stood up, just in his undershirt and trousers. He spied Jim quite at the other side of the hall and made his way over, it felt good to stretch his legs, he didn’t realize how dead they were. It was like a maze stepping between and over all the injured officers, including Uhura trying her best to stitch up a bad cut on Chekov’s chest.

“Lieutenant Uhura.”

She looked up and beamed. “Commander Spock, it’s fantastic to see you up and about.”

“Thank you. But you might want to give Mr. Chekov here some analgesics to help with the pain.”

“Oh, I completely forgot.” she frowned. “Sorry, Chekov.”

“Zank you, sir.” Chekov said through gritted teeth, clutching onto the mattress.

He carried on. Bones and Kirk almost didn’t notice him; they were bickering over whether Kirk should get some sleep.

“Jim I swear to god I will force feed you diazepam if you don’t put your damn head down and get some REST.” Bones was red in the face and extremely tense. Spock now noticed the big bags under his eyes; he obviously wasn’t practicing what he was preaching.

Kirk was trying to get a word in edgeways, to use his charm to stay up a bit longer. His arm was in a sling and he had several dark bruises and scratches on his face and neck.

“Please, Bones, I just wanna-“

“I don’t care, don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, you can see Spock later I’m sure he can wait. You have to let your arm-“

“But what if he’s asleep later? I mean it’s been days I was really worr-“

“I can inform you he’s quite adequate.” Spock stepped forward. Bones frowned as if to scold him for distracting Jim.

“Spock!” Kirk jumped up, eyes alight. “How are you? I’ve been waiting, well, I mean, I was hoping you’d recover quickly.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Spock hinted a glimpse of a smile. “I have been told I have minor scratches and bruises, no infections or poisoning. Perhaps a few headaches. But of course we can’t be certain under the circumstances.” Kirk couldn’t help laughing, so glad to have his friend back in such a crisis.

“We have limited medical supply, Sulu managed to land us the best he could but a lot was destroyed in both the landing and the attack,” Bones remarked. “Other supplies were damaged or unreachable. Not many officers are gonna make it unfortunately. We only have 70 able to run as temporary doctors, and only 3 of those are qualified, including me. The mattresses we got from bedrooms on the ship. Also most of the conscious crew members are injured and aren’t patching up great. It’s been tough. But we’re glad to have you back Spock.”

“You’ve been doing great Doctor. How many are there dead?”

“Well we have 70 working as doctors, 107 injured, 84 unconscious, and… 139 are dead.”

Bones eyes flicked to Kirk, Spock’s eyes followed. He was perched on the end of the bed with his head in his hand, staring at the floor with his eyes glistening and his jaw clenched.

Bones lowered his voice. “He blames himself for not saving his crew. Survivor’s guilt, especially with all that responsibility… I mean, Scotty might not make it out alive.”

Reluctantly, Spock sat down next to Kirk. Bones saw the message and packed up his stuff. They sat in silence for a few minutes. In the distance, you could hear Bones furious shouts as he saw what Uhura was doing to Chekov. Jim smirked.

“Well at least someone’s been keeping some sort of order.” He ran his hand through his hair and sniffed. There was a pause.

“Captain, I-“

“You know what, Bones is right I do need to get some rest. I’m finding it hard to sleep on my arm…”

“Captain-“

“I mean, when I wake up I have one broken arm and one dead arm,” He started to curl up on the mattress. “I’m not even allowed to take my sling off-“

“Jim, it wasn’t your fault.”

Jim just stared into the distance, scrunching up his face. “A captain must always go down with his ship.”

Spock frowned. “But you did. We all did.”

Kirk’s eyes flicked to him. “The first thing I saw when I woke up was the bloody and smashed in face of an officer I had spoken to a few hours before. Over half of my crew are dead. They were my responsibility.”

“No they were not. Their lives are their own. Nobody is blaming you, Captain, not even the most elite of Starfleet officers could’ve defended themselves.” Slowly he put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “You experienced fear. Just like the Kobayashi Maru test.”

“THIS IS PEOPLE’S LIVES NOT JUST SOME DAMN TEST.” His stood up, red in the face. Eyes all around were on him. Suddenly self-conscious, he sat down again. A tear escaped Jim’s eye and fell down his cheek. “I was their Captain and I _failed_ them.”

Suddenly, it clicked as to why he felt so responsible. Spock understood. “You are not your father. This is not the same situation.” He paused. “Jim?”

He sighed. “I know. But I couldn’t help thinking…” His breath caught in his throat and he looked over at Spock. “I’m gonna get some sleep.” Spock nodded and Jim got comfy – well, as comfy as he could on a half burnt mattress.

“As you wish Captain.” He began to walk away.

“Spock!” He looked over his shoulder. Jim smiled. “I… It’s… It’s nice to see you again. I’ve missed you.”

Spock let a small smile creep across his face.


End file.
